More than five hundred years ago, clans of dwarves and gnomes made an agreement known as the Phandelver's Pact, by which they would share a rich mine in a wondrous cavern known as Wave Echo Cave. In addition to its mineral wealth, the mine contained great magical power. Human spellcasters allied themselves with the dwarves and gnomes to channel and bind that energy into a great forge called the Forge of Spells, where magic items could be crafted. Times were good, and the nearby human town of Phandalin prospered as well. But then disaster struck when orcs swept through the North and laid waste to all in their path.

A powerful force of orcs reinforced by evil mercenary wizards attacked Wave Echo Cave to seize its riches and magic treasures. Human wizards fought alongside their dwarf and gnome allies to defend the Forge of Spells, and the ensuing spell battle destroyed much of the cavern. Few survived the cave-ins and tremors, and the location of Wave Echo Cave was lost.

For centuries, rumors of buried riches have attracted treasure seekers and opportunists to the area around Phandalin, but no one has ever succeeded in locating the lost mine. In recent years, people have resettled the area. Phandalin is now a rough-and-tumble frontier town. More important, the Rockseeker brothers-a trio of dwarveshave discovered the entrance to Wave Echo Cave, and they
intend to reopen the mines. Unfortunately for the Rockseekers, they are not the only ones interested in Wave Echo Cave...

Alright guys, let's do this. I've been interested in D&D for years, played some, and may or may not be ready to actually run a game. I'm hoping I can find 3-5 test subjects friendly players to play along and help me practice my skills as a DM. I'll be starting with the fairly traditional starting adventure, The Lost Mines of Phandelver, which I was surprised to find out had never been run on this forum. If this goes well, I might even try to do some original stuff, but that'll be far in the future. For now, I'm hoping for just a nice fun beginners game.

The game will be played on this forum with regular updates. You can use any rolling website you want for rolls. Characters will start at level one. There are five pre-made adventurers that come with the module that can be found here, and any players are free to use one of those. If you would like to create your own adventurer, that would be totally fine, too. Since this is my first time as a DM, I'm going to rule out homebrew classes/races for now. Other than that, I look forward to see what ideas you guys might come up with.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

Hey, this looks fun I'd be interested to join, but I have played the module through (mostly anyway) a couple of times as a DM so I probably am a little too familiar with the bulk of it to make for a good player (though I'm happy to fill a space if you're struggling for players).

Thanks! I can try to mix things up a little bit if you do decide to play. Probably not too much since I don't want to go too off the rails, but perhaps enough to make things interesting.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

I don't mind at all. As long as I can make it fun, and you don't metagame a whole bunch, I'm good.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

Hi Quarg, happy to have you. I'll give some more time to hopefully get another couple people.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

I'd definitely be glad to have you, Lurks. And feel free to make your own build. I figured I would put the pre-made characters up as an option for anybody who wanted one, or perhaps new players, but am definitely open to original characters. (And yeah. I was also surprised at how most of the characters were regular physical fighters with little non-combat skills)

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

The four premades are from the basic ruleset which is free to everyone and only includes the bare minimum of what you need to get started (no phb, no DMG etc.). The LMOP is built to be a standalone gateway product for new players and the four premades are kind of the "classic" DND builds

I think I'll make my own character, probably a tank, but nothing too wild

Since we have three players now, I figure that's enough to start getting ready. When you have a moment to start making your characters, feel free to put some basics here. At least name, race, class, and some basic character traits/background.

And if anybody else is interested, we still have room for one or two more people.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

I would be interested, but I never got the hang of the whole D&D ruleset. If you're willing to put up with that, I would like to join.

I wouldn't mind picking the "pre-rolled" cleric (pre-rolled because I don't know enough to build my char and cleric so we have some heals in the group), unless someone else wants to be the party band aid dispenser.

The winds of change are blowing, and if I may say so myself: it's about bloody time!

So in 5e there are more classes with options for healing and clerics can be really flexible tanks. I think they wanted to move away from forcing the cleric to always be the party healer and let them have other kinds of fun as well. So clerics are now a really nice, really mix of magic and melee abilities that you can play in a lot of ways.

Your can still be the party healer if you want that role and clerics are arguably still the best at it, but we'll do just fine if you don't want to be in that role the entire game

I'm thinking of going fighter because I love the class, but maybe ranger because I've never played one.

Ranger is a good generalist, able to dish out damage without being a total glass cannon. It just takes a while to level them up. Randy is going to get very interesting once he hits level 5.
I've got a cleric in the works, but I'm going to let Sam make the call as to whether to use him or not. He turned out a lot tankier than I'd planned on ( he got some REALLY good rolls ). He's almost OP.

Hi Gathers, I'd love to have you in the game. Since we already have a cleric, you can definitely feel free to branch out a bit, but it's definitely not a bad thing to have two clerics in the party.

And Lurks, let me look at the stats when He's finished. If your character is too OP we might have to make a couple changes, but I'll wait till I can take in the character as a whole before I make any decisions.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

All right, I've statted up a blue dragonborn bard for a spot of variety amongst the clerics and bit of support capability. Not sure how this fits with the group, but happy to build someone else if needs be making characters is fun haha! I used the standard array for now, unless you want to do it another way:

Personality: A giant among his kind, Balin learned at an early age to be careful with his great strength. Cutting an impressive figure, he earned a reputation as a firm friend, trustworthy and valiant. He is a bit naive still, only being a young 50 years of age. In particular he is still idealistic, believing that if only everyone would just do the "right thing", the world would be a wonderful place.
A scion of the Stonefist clan, a lineage heavy with Priests of Moradin and more than a few Hammers of Moradin, Balin's duty was clear from the beginning: To go forth and make things right. And if any stinking orc is so foolish as to get in his way....

Ideal: Faith. I trust that my deity will guide my actions, I have faith that if I work hard, things will go well. (Lawful)
Bond: Everything I do is for the common people.
Flaw: My piety sometimes leads me to blindly trust those that profess faith in my god.

@Lurks, Yeah, I can see how Balin could be a little OP. Those are some pretty good stats. I think it might be a good idea to bring him somewhat more in line with the other characters.

Standard array works fine for me if you all are okay with it. I'd be fine with point buy too if people want that. (If my research is correct it normally goes minimum 8 points, maximum 18 points, 27 points to use total?) If you really want to leave it to chance I'd be fine with rolling for stats even, but I'd want everybody to agree before we do that.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett

Wow, lurks that is a wall of text. I'm inclined to read it a bit later.

Also: we seem to have 3 clerics so far. XD

Point buy is one of the more common ways of distributing stats. Basically you get a certain amount of points, and you get to distribute them as you wish. There are minimum and maximum point values for each stats, so you can't minmax like crazy with it.

Thanks to Arch Lich Burns for the avatar, and Mnementh for the mustache.

Ã”Ã‡Â£Shoot the dictator and prevent the war? But the dictator is merely the tip of the whole festering boil of social pus from which dictators emerge; shoot him and there'll be another one along in a minute. Shoot him too? Why not shoot everyone and invade Poland?Ã”Ã‡Ã˜
Ã”Ã‡Ã² Terry Pratchett